Ash Road by Ivan Southall

Ash Road was published in 1965.  The first few pages show its age with dated language and an old fashioned style of writing, but don’t let that put you off reading this classic book.  Except for the lack of technology and kids being left largely to their own devices, the rest of the story could have been written this decade.

From the moment a trio of school boys accidentally start a bush fire, you know the unstoppable monster is heading straight for Ash Road.  The folk living on Ash Road have various levels of knowledge of the impending disaster and how to survive it, but don’t realise the enormity of the danger they’re in.  After all there’s a whole mountain and huge reservoir between them and the fire.

For anyone familiar with the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, the fictitious terrain around Ash Road is recognisable, but even for those of you who aren’t, Ash Road will have you on the edge of your seat.  Nature itself is both villain and hero in this book but the human characters’ efforts to save themselves and each other are precious, and the trial by fire changes each character indelibly.  The ending is a relief and the last line incredibly moving. 

Ivan Southall’s descriptions of the fire are outstanding – classic Aussie children’s literature at its best:

It came upon his vision as something living and evil, shapeless and formless, constantly changing, huge beyond comprehension: an insane creature of immense greed consuming everything around it whether the taste pleased or revolted it, rejecting what it did not care for only after it had mauled and savaged it, then pitching it aside or spitting it into the heavens. – Ivan Southall, Ash Road